Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Harold Rhode wading in waist-high water to inspect documents and books found in the Baghdad secret police HQ in 2003.

Point of No Return Exclusive

Harold Rhode believes in miracles.

An orthodox Jew, one of the Pentagon's now-retired Islamic experts, Rhode is a self-confessed rationalist (like his Lithuanian-Jewish ancestors). However, he sees a divine hand in the discovery and recovery of thousands of Jewish books and documents from the putrid, water-logged basement of Saddam Hussein's secret police headquarters in Baghdad 10 years ago.

The rest is history: the trove, a unique record of the life and times of a now-extinct Jewish community, airlifted to Israel in Operation Ezra and Nehemiah in the 1950s, was rescued, shipped out to the US for restoration, painstakingly preserved, catalogued and photographed in a second 'Operation and Nehemiah'. Its highlights are now on display at the National Archives building in Washington DC.

Miracle One: When the US began its invasion of Iraq in 2003, a 2,000- pound bomb was dropped on the secret police headquarters. Miraculously, the bomb failed to explode, although the water system burst, causing the basement, which housed the Jewish and Israeli sections, to flood.

Miracle Two: As he began to sift through the trove, Rhode found a Torah scroll opened at Lekh Lekha, the passage in the Jewish Bible where God commands Abraham to leave Mesopotamia and journey to a land which He would show him. For Rhode, the symbolism was inescapable. (Minor miracle: the documents were laid out on the grass beside a row of beehives, but none of the rescuers was stung. )

Miracle Three: the trove was packed in aluminium crates, loaded onto a US airforce airplane bound for the National Archives conservation depot in Texas and frozen, to arrest the documents' deterioration. On a refuelling stop in Cyprus, the electricity was routinely switched off for safety reasons. The archivist accompanying the trove requested that the plane be supplied with ground power to prevent the documents from thawing. Her request was refused.

She demanded to see the base commander. By another miracle, the commander appeared, wearing a kippa. What are the chances of a US airforce base being run by an observant Jew - one who would understand the importance of salvaging the Iraqi-Jewish archive? The commander gave orders to supply the power.

The greatest miracle of all - some would call it a coincidence - is that the documents would never have been retrieved from Baghdad had Harold Rhode himself, a fluent Hebrew and Arabic speaker, not recognised their importance. Their value lies not so much in the books, most of which are 'two-a-penny', as Rhode puts it, but in the handwritten notes in the margin. These cast light on the way an entire community thought.

The US is now committed by a signed agreement to send the archive back to Iraq instead of restituting it to its Jewish owners in Israel and the West.

Monday, December 30, 2013

Handwritten document from the Iraqi-Jewish archive, now on view at the National Archives in Washington DC

What happens next to the Iraqi-Jewish archive? A tug-of-war for ownership between the government of Iraq and exiled Jews is being played out. This article in the December issue of Ami magazine by Machla Abramovitch suggests a softening on both sides: the Iraqi government may finally concede a long-term loan arrangement. (With thanks: Carole)

The scene at New Montefiore Cemetery in
West Babylon, New York on the wet and chilly afternoon of December 15 was
nothing less than surrealistic. Mingling sociably with over 100 Iraqi Jews who
had come from far and wide was Lukman Faily, Iraq’s new ambassador to the
United States, as well as dignitaries from the Iraqi Ministries of the Inte-
rior, Foreign Affairs and National Security Council who had flown in from
Baghdad for the occasion. Also attending was US State Department Director of
Near East and African Affairs Anthony Godfrey and Doris Hamburg, Director of
the National Archives and Records Administration preservation program (NARA).
They had come to bury close to 50 fragments of damaged Torah scrolls and
Megillos Esther that were beyond repair and had been part of the collection
that has come to be known as the Iraqi Jewish Archives.

Dr. Stanley Urman, executive vice president
of Justice for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC), was at the cemetery. “In the
midst of continuing controversy over ownership of the Iraqi Jewish Archives,”
said Urman, “it was quite startling to see them handling these Jewish
artifacts with respect, symbolically laying to rest the heritage of a now-defunct
Jewish community as Tehillim were being recited.”

The burial of the fragments was negotiated
by Maurice Shohet, president of the World Organization of Iraqi Jews (WOJI).
The day had been long in coming. It had taken close to five years of
negotiations for the Iraqi government, which claims patrimony over these sacred
fragments, to agree to bury them. The burial of the fragments was negotiated by Maurice
Shohet, president of the World Organization of Iraqi Jews (WOJI).

These, together with thousands of priceless
Jewish artifacts res- cued in 2003 from the flooded basement of Saddam
Hussein’s intelligence headquarters, had been brought out of Iraq only after an
agreement between NARA and Iraq’s interim government was signed, legally
binding the US to return the materials to Iraq by June 2014.

Once in the States, they were lovingly and
meticulously cleaned, repaired, conserved and digitized by NARA under the care
of Hamburg and Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler, chief of the Document Conservation
Laboratory, at a cost to the State Department of about $3 million. The archives
are currently on exhibit in the National Archives Building in Washington, DC,
until January 5, 2014, when they are scheduled to be moved to New York.

This agreement, however, has ignited a
battle. Many Iraqi Jews have galvanized into action to fight the return to Iraq
of these priceless artifacts of their history. Citing security concerns that
would prevent him and fellow Iraqi Jewish expatriates from accessing these
materials should they return to Iraq, Edwin Shuker was just one of many who
publicly voiced his opposition. But Iraq was not prepared to listen.

“The Iraqi government will not give up any
part of these docu- ments. This is an Iraqi legacy owned by all the Iraqi
people and it belongs to all the generations, regardless of religious, ethnic
or sectarian affiliations,” declared Ali al-Moussawi on behalf of Iraqi Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

This position, though, wasn’t set in stone.
Reports had been floating that a separate delegation would soon arrive to
discuss a long-term loan of the archives to the US. Many hope this indicates
a shift towards a new and more accommodating Iraq. “This is a statement by the
government and people of Iraq that we are here to respect the heritage of the
Jews,” Faily said following the burial.

Whatever the motivation, the change didn’t
happen overnight. There had been indications for the past two weeks that both
the Iraqi government and the State Department, the two major players, were
beginning to soften their positions, and that the latter was prepared to
facilitate a compromise between Iraq and WOJI, the representative body of world
Iraqi Jewry. There is no question that Jewish advocacy played a key role in
sensitizing these players and the public at large to what many saw as an
injustice in returning Jewish property to the very country that had looted it.

Although the precise details of this
extended loan are yet to be negotiated and the proposal might not address the
matter of Jewish patrimony itself, activists like Urman see it as a small step
towards a positive resolution to a story that began unexpectedly a decade ago
under the strangest of circumstances.

***

Islamic affairs expert Dr. Harold Rhode
vividly recalls standing in front of the bombed-out Mukhabarat, Saddam
Hussein’s intelligence headquarters, staring into a gaping hole with a 2,000-
pound unexploded American bomb protruding from it. It was May 2003, and the
temperature in Baghdad hovered at around 120 degrees. Through the hole he could
see the basement of the building, which had flooded with dark, putrid water
after its pipes were destroyed. What he was now looking at, he was told, was a
room filled with Baghdadi Jewish artifacts and holy books immersed in slime

The day before, Ahmad Chalabi, head of the
opposition Iraqi National Congress, had been visited by a former Saddam
intelligence official currying favor who informed him of the existence of
this cache, which included a seventh-century Hebrew scroll on parchment that he
claimed to have hidden inside the build- ing himself. Intrigued, Chalabi
notified Rhode and Judith Miller, a former New York Times journalist who was
embedded with the Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha, the American group searching
for weapons of mass destruction. Gazing into the abyss, they, along with New
York Sun reporter Adam Daifallah, members of the Iraqi National Congress and
the 16-member MET Alpha team, solemnly considered the daunting task before them.

According to Miller, the water level had
reached four feet, there were dead animals floating on the surface, the
stairwell leading down to the basement was littered with shards of glass and
fallen plaster, and a horrendous stench rose from the mess. How to find a
seventh-century Hebrew scroll amidst all this debris?

Girding themselves, Chief Warrant Officer
Richard “Monty” L. Gonzales and two of the MET Alpha soldiers plunged in. Even
though their job was to search for WMDs and not to retrieve reli- gious artifacts,
they had been asked to make an exception by their commander, Colonel Richard R.
McPhee, who was unwilling to leave this historic scroll behind. “They
went into the muck again and again to pull things out, with a bomb sitting
right there. It was an impressive effort,” Miller told Ami.

What they found astounded them. There was
an “Israel” room that included, among masses of other items, maps highlighting
terrorist strikes against Israel, a detailed model of the Knesset and other
Israeli government buildings, and satellite photos of Dimona, Israel’s nuclear
facility. There was also a sign in Arabic that read, “Who will send off the
40th missile?” (During the Persian Gulf War, a total of 39 missiles fell on
Israel.)

Equally disconcerting was the “Jew” room
across the sodden corridor, filled with thousands of books and artifacts that,
as would later be ascertained, had been indiscriminately looted by Saddam’s
thugs from Baghdad synagogues, Jewish community centers and schools. These
constituted what would come to be referred as the “Iraqi Jewish Archives.”

The collection consists of some 2,700 books
that correlate, ironically, with the 2,700 years of Babylonian Jewish
history. Among some of the rarest finds were a Chumash published in 1568 by
Giovanni di Gara, Abraham Brudo’s Birkat Avraham, published in 1696, a Babylonian
Talmud from 1793, and a Zohar from 1815, in addition to many fragments,
standard prayer books, Chumashim and commentaries. A manuscript has just come
to light that was identified as a missing piece of a Shabbos drashah given by
the illustrious halachic authority and kabbalist Chacham Yosef Chaim, known as
the Ben Ish Chai.

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Jews from Arab lands are marginal to the debate about Israel, but there are several good reasons why they should be central - Lyn Julius argues at Limmud, the highlight of the UK Jewish cultural calendar. Op-Ed in Israel National News:

Limmud conference, one of the highlights of the UK Jewish cultural calendar,
is something between School and an academic Club Med. A cross-section
of British Jewry hurries past you on its way to lecture theaters and seminar
rooms offering 'food for thought’ to suit every interest, age and
taste. Lunch in an improvised canteen is a democratic baked potato
dispensed by staff wearing surgical gloves, or a DIY sandwich and a
banana. One does not go to Limmud for the gastronomy.

On the day I
arrived, Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis was about to make his much
hyped-appearance with a lecture on the weekly Parasha - Shemot.

Along
with 24 other presenters scheduled alongside the Rabbi - addressing
such eclectic topics as ‘Are monks and nuns human?’ and ‘Lying beggars,
magical wives and other rabbinic stories’ - we were vying for the
attention of 2,500 Limmudniks.

While people queued up an hour in advance for a seat at the Mirvis talk, I wondered if I would be talking to myself.

The 870,000 Jewish refugees dispossessed and
driven out from Arab lands in a single generation have for too long been
marginal to a debate fixated with settlements and security guarantees.
Yet, I argued, the Jewish refugees are key - not just because they are
an unresolved human rights issue, but because they are central to a fair and just peace settlement.

The
real stumbling block to peace is not to do with territorial compromise -
but the Right of Return, a right that Palestinians cling to like a
baby to its mother. A peace agreement would recognize that there was a
permanent exchange of populations. The Jewish refugees were successfully
absorbed in Israeli society and constitute a model for the resettlement
of Palestinian refugees in a state of Palestine or Arab states. Time
for UNWRA, an exclusive agency dedicated to the care of Palestinian
refugees, to be wound up.

Next I argued that Israel was a
response, not the cause of anti-Semitism in the Arab world. Proof
positive was a plan by the Arab League drafted in 1947 to persecute
their Jewish citizens.
One young man was skeptical. Was this plan not a response to Zionism in general?

I
told him that many other examples of anti-Semitism predated the
creation of Israel, inspired by the growing influence of Nazism in the
1930s and 40s - the Iraqi Farhud, for instance, which claimed the lives
of 180 Iraqi Jews. Rising religious fundamentalism and pan-Arab
nationalism impacted not just on Jews, but on Copts, Kurds and
Assyrians.

My final point was that the myth that Israel was a
‘white European colonial interloper’ needed to be turned on its head.
Like Kurds, Berbers and Copts, Jews were an indigenous people of the
Middle East - and themselves the victims of Arab colonization after the
7th century conquest. Along with Christians, they were forced to submit
as ‘dhimmis’. In order to escape their inferior and humiliated status,
Jews collaborated with European colonialism. The creation of Israel
marked the final deliverance of Jews in Arab lands from ‘dhimmi' status.

My
audience was curious to find out why the Israeli government had for so
long ignored the Jews from Arab lands issue. This question often comes
up. The Israeli government was waking up from its long slumber with an
awareness-raising campaign at the UN. But it was not enough, as long as
chief negotiator Tzipi Livni refused to believe that Jewish refugees had
anything to do with Palestinian refugees. Did she know that the Arab
League had designated Jews in Arab states as ’the Jewish minority of
Palestine’; that the Mufti of Jerusalem had gone from state to state
whipping up anti-Jewish hatred?

I had been bracing myself for a
question on the discrimination experienced by Mizrahi Jews at the hands
of the Ashkenazim. Sure enough it came. Social discrimination
was diminishing, with intermarriage rates running at 25 percent, I
replied. A more serious form of discrimination is the attitude of many
Israeli liberals who privilege Arab rights over those of the 52 percent
of Israeli Jews who descend from Arab lands.

One of them is even conducting peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

Friday, December 27, 2013

A new Memorial Day in the Israeli calendar is about to be officially announced – the 17 th February - to Remember Jewish Refugees from Arab countries. Just as it has Holocaust Memorial Day and Independence Day, the Israeli calendar will have a Day to Remember Jewish refugees from Arab countries. Michelle Huberman writes in Jewish News (no link yet):

A bill is going through the Knesset to make the Day law. This date has been chosen because it is the day when the Arab League drafted a plan to strip their Jews of their citizenship, freeze their bank accounts and confiscate their assets.
Nearly one million Jews were expelled from Arab countries. Most went to Israel where until the large Russian Aliyah in the 90’s, they made up 75% of the Jewish population. The rest went mostly to France, Italy, the Americas and the UK.

Although there are no official statistics here, the UK community is believed to be around 25,000 and growing.
Despite the lack of money and resources in the early years, Israel made great efforts to absorb these immigrants, and despite the many problems of poverty and discrimination that they faced, the country was able to successfully absorb most of them. The assets they left behind have been estimated at around $4.4 billion.

There has been an enormous gap in the Jewish education system and as Moroccan born MK Shimon Ohayon (a former schoolmaster), states “Every Israeli child learns about the Kishinev pogrom, but has anyone heard about the Farhud in Iraq? Everyone remembers the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, but hardly anyone knows about the Zionist underground activity in Arab states. The education system teaches about the first exodus from Europe, while the second exodus – the one from Islamic countries – is missing from textbooks.

“Whilst the predominantly Ashkenazi community in this country may have embraced Sephardi and Mizrahi cuisine, most are unaware of the persecution most of these Jews fled from, and know little about why they came to settle in Britain.

Most are curious to know why I, as an Ashkenazi, am busy promoting Sephardi history, but I strongly believe that what happened to Jews in Arab countries is as much our history as is the Holocaust. One cannot begin to understand the complexities of Israel and the Middle East without knowing how the Jews were treated by their Arab brethren.

There is a belief that everything was wonderful between Jews and Arabs until the State of Israel was born in 1948. However listening to the testimonies from these communities one soon grasps that this is a complete myth.
In Iraq Jews were being executed for being ‘Zionists’. They could be arrested for having Hebrew books in their homes. Jews could not work, travel and pursue higher education. Above all, they feared a repeat of the 1941 Farhud pogrom, in which 180 Jews were murdered. In 1950, the Iraqi government finally consented to allow Jews to leave. Ninety percent did, but within a year their assets were seized.

Aden, a British protectorate at the tip of the Arabian peninsula, was ravaged by a pogrom in 1947 in which 82 Jews were killed and homes and businesses destroyed. British passport–holders sought sanctuary in this country. In 1956 they were joined by Egyptian Jews who were given 24 hours to leave their homes. For many, their first taste of Britain was a refugee camp in the north of England.

Other Jews arrived later from North Africa, Iraq, Bahrain, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iran.
Until very recently, successive Israeli governments have been criticised by the Sephardim and their descendants for their near silence on the issue - but now thanks to groups like JJAC in America and Harif in the UK, things are about to change.

London based organisation Harif is dedicated to promoting the history, culture and heritage of the Jews from the Middle East and North Africa. We have a range of educational tools and hold regular events with guest speakers from here and abroad.
We will also be commemorating with a Justice for Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries Week.

It will be kicked off on the new Memorial Day - the 17th February - with a plush Soirée Orientale (kosher Sephardi party) in a central London hotel with guest stars from Israel Yossi Alfi and acclaimed singer Sari Alfi. The evening is not just to commemorate, but also to celebrate. It will be followed the next day with a Briefing forpoliticiansandjournalists and other events during the week. More details on the Harif website.

Michelle Huberman is the Creative Director of Harif and can be contacted at michelle@harif.org

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

At least 38 people have died in bomb attacks in Christian areas of Baghdad, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. Soon there may not be any Christians left. The parallel with the plight of Iraq's Jews is not lost on Monsignor Pios Cacha of St Joseph's church, where 14 were killed. (With thanks: Maier)

A car bomb targeted a church in the Iraqi capital on Wednesday as
worshippers left after Christmas Mass, killing at least 14 people, most
of them Christians, security officials said.

The blast in the Dura area of south Baghdad also wounded more than 30 people, the sources said.

"The attack targeted the church, and most of the martyrs are
Christians," a police colonel. "The attack happened when worshippers
were leaving the church" after a service.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

"Attacks distort the image of Islam and religion, if they are
carrying them out in the name of religion," Monsignor Pios Cacha of
Baghdad's St. Joseph church said.

"The church is a place of love and peace, and not for wars," Cacha said.
Earlier in the year, Cacha had said that "maybe we will
follow in the steps of our Jewish brothers," referring to a
once-thriving community that is now practically non-existent.

Iraq has seen its Christian population sharply decline in the years since 2003.

David Zaarur is reviving the music of his great grandfather Yusef Zaarur, kanoon player extraordinaire (The Forward)

With thanks: Ahoova

More proof that a whole new generation of Israelis are rediscovering the musical legacy of their antecedents, the Jewish musicians of 1930s and 40s Iraq.

First, there were the famous Al-Kuwaity brothers, the Bob Dylan and Simon /Garfunkel of their day. They adopted the name in honour of their royal patron, the Emir of Kuwait. Shlomo, son of Saleh Al-Kuwaity, created an event to commemorate the centenary of the great violinist and composer's birth. Dudu Tassa, a musician in his own right, made a film about his grandfather, the great oud player Daoud al-Kuwaity.

Now it's the turn of David Zaarur to revive the memory of his great-grandfather, the kanoon player Yusef Zaarur.

David is the only musician in his family. This clip from the Forward explains that his great-grandfather played in the Radio Orchestra of Baghdad, which was mostly staffed by Jews.

The Orchestra carried off the first prize in the World Music Congress of Cairo in the 1930s.

Jews dominated the music scene in the mid-20th century. They were the last to leave Iraq for Israel in the mass exodus of 1950 - 51 because the Iraqi authorities detained them until they had passed on their musical skills to Iraqi Muslims.

In a moving sequence in the Forward's clip, Khalil, an Iraqi Muslim living in Baghdad, sends a message to David in Israel. He apologises for the country's failure to recognise the massive musical contribution of musicians like Yusef Zaarur. In the Saddam era, their records were played on the radio and described only as 'the old music'.

Although the music of the al-Kuwaitys and others has experienced a notable revival in 'the new Iraq', Khalil says he is afraid for having spoken out in favour of Iraq's Jews.

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Tunisian Jewry comprised two communities - the indigenous Jews and the relative newcomers from Leghorn (Livorno) - less religious, free thinking Italian patriots. In this fascinating piece on the Tunisian site Harissa, Giacomo Nunes describes his wartime experiences as a schoolboy in Tunis (with thanks: Michelle):

In my family we almost all shared the liberal Jewish ideas of my father. Only my Grandmother Eugenia was an exception. Her Cattan family were religious. They
were also from Leghorn : I recently learned that their name is not from the
Hebrew for "small" but is a contracted form of " Catalan " . Grandma undertook to supplement my education. She
had imposed kosher food on her husband, my Grandpa Maurizio,
and was shocked to discover him one day, hiding in the lounge, which was always locked and dark, eating unmentionables. Grandfather was a doctor and his Sicilian
patients often paid him in kind, for example with home-cured hams, which he
adored.

Grandpa Maurizio picked me up every day at 4 pm at the Regina Margherita
school and I stayed with grandmother Eugenia. She prepared my tea and took
advantage of my presence to compensate for my father's shortcomings in religious education. My mother came to pick me up at dinner time. I
learned from Grandma not only the broad outlines of the
history of the Jewish people but also the rules of kashrut and other
traditions.

Without a moment's hesitation back at home, I demanded Kosher dishes for the approaching Passover
holidays, while my father cried out:"She teaches him all these superstitions." In turn he tried to clear my mind of all " this nonsense. " This is how I benefited from a dual education. I found it suited me well, I admit. I was both a liberal Jew like my father, but I'm also proud of my membership of this small nation - so gifted and resilient. And I also consider myself a citizen of the world as many Leghorn Jews did, heirs of the great ideas of the French Revolution.

This
sense of belonging became even stronger when, during the summer of
1938, Mussolini introduced racial laws and the
Nazis of the German Afrika Korps arrived after the German defeat of El Alamein in Libya. We were in our Kram villa, our summer residence, near a beach located about ten kilometers from Tunis on the day when our "dear Duce "pronounced the unbearable words: " Jews are not Italians ."

We were appalled. In
our family we gave ample proof of our patriotism: Gastone Nunez, the
brother of my father and Giacomo Cardoso, the brother of my mother,
had volunteered during the 1914 -18 war in the Italian army and had died of
disease and injury during the fighting. And
we had all maintained our Italian citizenship for at least 150 years in a Tunisian and French environment that did not necessarily favour us.These Livornese were dogged nationalists; some were even fascists and a tiny minority remained so until the end. In our little family, Mussolini's 1938 proposals and laws wounded us deeply. That is why most children from Leghorn were made to leave their ItaIian institutions and found themselves overnight in French schools. Thus
I entered 6eme (aged 11) in the Lycee Carnot in the autumn of 1938. I had to
change languages, learn the horrendous French spelling, and find new
friends: My classmates of the Regina Margherita school had turned their backs on me in the street. I had become a plague for them. One even called me: " giudeo cane" ( Jewdog ) . Being a Jew became a sin, worthy only of insult.

However, the Italian Consulate had offered us exceptional status : we
could be considered Honorary Aryans : Mussolini hoped to replace
France as an occupying power and we would have been the leaders of the
Italian Community. This was a role that the Sicilian population, large but uncouth, could not play. Of
course the Consulate's proposal was rejected by most Livornese ;
we were barely believers but "Honorary Aryans?" - Heaven forfend.

And
voila, one disaster followed another : France was defeated in 1940, and the Vichy regime brought to power Petain and Laval and so many other monsters. At Lycée
Carnot, our History teacher, Mr. Paquel, turned up in class half-drunk, made a Hitler salute and shouted 'you yids.' Because we were almost all Jews at the Lycée Carnot. To which the class replied with jeers.However, we had to learn the words to " Marechal nous voila " and march through the center of Tunis singing this soothing hymn. As
there were very few French from France at the Lycée, they put a beret on our Jewish heads and baptised us "Companions of France". The Petainist
youth movement advocated the New Order of the French State
and wore the Francisque, Gallic equivalent of the German swastika and the Italian fasces.

But
when the war and the Allied bombing of 1942-43 came, all the Jews at the Lycée
Carnot had to join the Sadiki College reserved for Muslim
natives. Only two or three teachers protested - they were dismissed. I have already said that thousands of young Jews were sent to dig trenches in areas of the country bombarded by the Allies. Jewish notables, including my
father, were taken as hostages by the Nazis. Half of our apartment was occupied by three German
officers. There were fines and other vexations.I
was too young to react to all this other than by helping my cousin Lucien
Soria who roamed the streets of Tunis at night stuffing seditious leaflets into
mailboxes. An armed struggle was unthinkable because we did not have weapons
and had no support from experienced people. Almost all the country's
inhabitants of the country sympathized with the regime or were opportunists.

Fortunately, one day in May, the nightmare ceased with the Allies arriving victorious from Algeria. Later, once France had been liberated, I could continue my studies, get to know France, Italy and many other countries. But for people of my generation the memory of this period is indelible. This
is why my writings are a reminder of my small group of ancestors from
Leghorn whom few recall and who managed to survive for centuries before disappearing as a community. Read article in full (French)

Monday, December 23, 2013

It's time to stop obfuscating the Palestinian-Nazi axis. We have it straight from the mouth of a PLO official - Farouk Kaddoumi - that Arabs have been enthusiastic supporters of the Nazis, according to this report on Arutz 7. Their support impacted on Jews in Arab countries, witness the Mufti of Jerusalem's part in the Farhud in Iraq. (With thanks: Lily; Michelle)

In an interview with Russia Today TV
on December 7, Farouq Qaddoumi, the former political bureau head of the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said that Arabs were
“enthusiastic supporters” of the Nazis during World War II.
The remarks were translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

“I don't think it would be wrong to say that we were enthusiastic
supporters of Germany,” Qaddoumi said in the interview, when asked by
the interviewer, “Were you sympathetic with Nazi Germany in WWII?”

The interviewer, seeking to clarify, then said, “You supported Hitler
and his people.” Qaddoumi replied, “Germany, yes. This was common among
the Palestinians, especially since our enemy was Zionism, and we saw
that Zionism was hostile to Germany, and vice versa.”

These remarks are just the latest evidence of the Arab support for Nazis and for genocide of Jews.

Recently, MEMRI posted clips from two separate rallies at Al-Quds University, in which Islamic Jihad members, cheered on by other students, take part in a live performance at which they brandish imitation assault rifles and black Islamist flags, and give Nazi salutes.

The live "show" features terrorists killing Israeli soldiers and
executing a "collaborator", who is denounced as a "traitor" and a "spy",
and suggests that the initial pictures, which were first released by
British journalist Tom Gross, were not from a one-off incident but
evidence of a much wider phenomenon.

Many Israelis point to the lionization of Nazi and other anti-Semitic
figures as a reason to doubt the sincerity of the Palestinian
Authority's commitment to any future peace agreement.

Just this past October, for example, Jewish motorists were horrified to see a Nazi flag flying over a major road near the Arab town of Beit Umar. The flag had apparently been placed there by residents of the town, located near Hevron.
That incident was in fact the second occasion in which Beit Umar residents had flown a Nazi flag over the same highway, in an apparent "gesture" to their Jewish neighbors.

Later that same month, a youth magazine linked to the Palestinian Authority published a list of "famous quotes" from none other than Adolf Hitler, aimed at glorifying the Nazi leader.

Also in October, reacting to ongoing incidents of incitement and
anti-Semitism by the Palestinian Authority, Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu noted the deep link between the Palestinian national movement and Germany's Nazi regime.

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Aomar Boum (right) is the son of illiterate parents of mixed Berber and Arab parentage

This is a disappointingly bland interview with a Moroccan-born anthropologist, assistant professor at Arizona university Aomar Boum, by the Tablet magazine. Boum, who derives his research funding from Jewish organisations including the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC, has written a book, 'Memories of absence', comparing the different responses to Jews by four generations of Muslims in the Anti-Atlas mountains. The Jews, peddlars and merchants, helped the Muslims to survive in a inhospitable environment. It comes as no surprise to learn that the youngest generation has been brainwashed by the most virulent antisemitism (of 'Christian' origin, he claims). But while he makes out that the oldest generation had friendly relations with Jews, there was also 'anxiety, strife and enmity'. Tantalisingly, he never elaborates. (With thanks: Jonah)

In the early 20th century, nearly a quarter of a
million Jews lived among Muslims in Morocco’s towns and villages,
making common cause in commerce and culture. Over the course of the past century, nearly all of them have left. Now there are an estimated 4,000 Jews in Morocco. So few that most younger Moroccans have never met one.
Aomar Boum, an anthropologist at the University of Arizona, did meet
Jews growing up in Morocco—that is, once he moved from his small
village in the Anti-Atlas mountains to the city of Marrakesh for school.
He went back to his birth country to find out what Moroccans—four
generations of them—think of their former neighbors and acquaintances,
particularly in light of current tensions between Arabs and Jews in the
Middle East. The result of his investigation is Memories of Absence: How Muslims Remember Jews in Morocco.

My comment: One commenter objects to the term 'left', as opposed to 'fled', to describe the departure of Jews in response to antisemitism, but backs down when Boum himself intervenes in the discussion. The Jews 'left' because Israel had reached an agreement with Morocco, he says. The reasons why Jews 'left' are 'complicated'. But Boum never makes clear that Jews were forbidden from emigrating for six years. This ban in itself was a violation of their human rights. I find his tendency to blame antisemitism on Christian sources simplistic and politically-correct. What about home-grown bigotry?

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Mesmuah Yeshua synagogue in Rangoon (Yangon)...more than just a building

The last synagogue in Rangoon is a symbol of fast-diminishing religious tolerance, argues Michael Rubin in the Commentator (with thanks: Lily):

Voice of America picked up a fascinating story about efforts to preserve Burma’s (Myanmar’s) last synagogue:

The Mesmuah Yeshua synagogue is in a
neighborhood typical of colonial Rangoon. Mosques, Hindu temples,
churches, and Buddhist pagodas dot busy streets of markets, hawkers, and
hardware shops. The protected heritage building dates back to 1896, and
has been under the care of a member of the Samuels family for
generations… Author and historian Thant Myint-U heads the Yangon Heritage Trust,
an organization dedicated to saving Rangoon’s heritage buildings. He
says the synagogue’s preservation effort is about more than just the
building: it’s about recovering Burma’s past, to help people understand
the city’s rich multiethnic history.

The whole story is worth reading, especially against the backdrop of the destruction of Java’s last synagogue
earlier this summer, the razing of the Jewish quarters in both
Sulaymani and Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, the end of the Jewish community
in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and the start of what might well become a Jewish exodus
from an increasingly intolerant Turkey. Sixteen years ago, I watched
the Jewish community in Tajikistan build a guest house near the Jewish
cemetery to prepare for the end of what they assumed would be that
country’s permanent Jewish community.

Religious intolerance is spreading
across the Middle East and many places in Asia as populist and
radicalized clergy urge their followers to make life intolerable for
Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist minorities. Traveling over
the years in Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Egypt, and Iran, I have
heard older generations describe the cosmopolitan atmosphere of their
youth, playing with friends of different religions.

Friday, December 20, 2013

A video, 'Cemetery of the lost tribe' was made about the Karachi Jewish cemetery

A project to clean up the Jewish cemetery of Karachi has launched a call for volunteers.

F. Bhenkhald, who Tweets as @Jew_Pakistani, is looking for people to help him undertake the work. He blames 'government neglect' for the state of the cemetery.

Funds to maintain the cemetery have dried up. Six families live on the site, including the caretaker. A recent report revealed that there had been repeated attempts to take over the land, and that the cemetery residents themselves had paid towards building a boundary wall.

There are almost 5,000 graves in the cemetery, now overrun by nettles and thorns.
In its heyday the Jewish community numbered about 3,000 Jews. In the cemetery is the grave of Solomon David, an official of the
Karachi Municipal Corporation, who also built the Magain Shalome
synagogue in Saddar.
The last burial was in the 1980s.

According to F Bhenkhald, there are up to 200 elderly Jews remaining in Karachi with their carers.

Thursday, December 19, 2013

The burial ceremony of 49 parchments at the Montefiore cemetery, Long Island, NY (with thanks: Gina)

Iraq has embarked on a PR offensive following the burial of the 'pasool' Torah parchments in a New York ceremony. Below is the full text of a press release issued by the Iraqi embassy in the US. The Iraqis are anxious to show that the archive is Iraq's property. Allowing the ceremony to take place is a magnanimous gesture and evidence of their practising 'democracy' and pluralism - proof of the 'new Iraq'. In truth, Iraq's constitution, which stipulates equality for all regardless of religion, does not mention the Jews*, while antisemitic incitement remains rife.

"The Government of Iraq announces the burial of 49 Torah scroll
fragments, which were part of the Iraqi Jewish Archive collection
currently in the United States, in cooperation with the Iraqi Jewish
community presented by the World Organization of Jews from Iraq. The
burial under Jewish ritual custom took place on December 15, 2013 at the
New Montefiore Cemetery in West Babylon, New York. The fragments were
interred at the cemetery through a religious service ceremony, which was
attended by Ambassador Lukman Faily, other Iraqi officials, and
officials from the U.S. Government.

"Today, Iraq marks another milestone of practicing democracy by
approving the proper handling of these fragments and the disposal of its
sacred texts, which were no longer viable for religious purposes, and
welcomed the opportunity to undertake this good will gesture and
cooperate with the Iraqi Jewish community on this important endeavor.

"Iraq’s new constitution stipulates that all Iraqis are equal in their
rights without regard to sect or religion. The Iraqi Jewish community,
like other communities in Iraq, played a key role in building the
country; it shared in its prosperity and also suffered exile and forced
departure because of tyranny. The Government of Iraq also appreciates
the support of the U.S. Department of State and the National Archives
and Records Administration (NARA) on this matter and for their continued
contribution to the preservation of the entire Iraqi Jewish Archive.

"The Iraqi Jewish Archive is a collection of books, manuscripts, and
records in Hebrew and Arabic languages, found by the Coalition Forces in
2003 and salvaged from a flooded basement in Al Mukhabarat building in
Baghdad after the fall of the regime. The Archive is Iraq’s property (my emphasis - ed)and
was brought to the U.S. under an agreement for preservation,
conservation, and exhibition."

The Jews of Iraq have found a champion in Nabil al-Hadairi, writing in the Gatestone Institute. Here the UK-based Islamic scholar inveighs against the return of the Iraqi-Jewish archive. The Iraqis want the books back, but are not prepared to give their owners their rights. (With thanks: Jonah)

The question is: How can the
archives be sent back to Iraq without real guarantees, particularly as
the government claims it has multiples of that volume in Iraq? If so,
why does the government not fully conserve and maintain the existing
volumes and then place them in museums and exhibit them so they can be
of use?

The other question is: Where are the rights of the Jews of Iraq
today? The Iraqi government should return to them their citizenship,
then returned to them all property and assets unjustly and wrongfully
plundered, and compensate them for the great losses they suffered. How
can an archive be returned without its true owners? Such an act is
unreasonable and unacceptable.

This fall, two Iraqi experts travelled to the U.S. to study the
archival material of Iraq's former Jewish community, in order to prepare
measures of conserving it so that they can take care of the archive
when it is returned to Iraq. At present, work is progressing rapidly in
the branch archives in College Park by a team of experts with high-tech
equipment for cleaning and restoration and digitization of records and
documents.

It is strange that there is much talk today about sending the Jewish
archives next year to the Iraqi Department of Antiquities in Baghdad,
although it is not clear where it is to be kept or exhibited. (The National Library of Iraq has been suggested - ed)

The question is: How can the archives be sent back to Iraq without
real guarantees for its preservation, maintenance and access,
particularly as the government claims it has multiples of that volume in
Iraq? If so, why does the government not fully conserve and maintain
the already existing volumes and then place them in museums and exhibit
them so they can be of use?

The other question is: Where are the rights of the Jews of Iraq
today? If the Iraqi government acknowledges their great history, it
should return to them their citizenship, first and foremost. In the
First Interfaith Conference convened in Suleimania last year this author
demanded that they be given their parliamentary seats, just like other
religions, then have returned to them all property and assets unjustly
and wrongfully plundered, and be compensated for the great losses they
suffered. How can the archive be returned without its true owners? Such a
act is unreasonable and unacceptable.Read article in full

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

M is a Farsi-speaking intelligence officer in the IDF. His nail-biting escape from Iran was a bit like a scene from the film 'Argo' - but without the champagne. Riveting portrait in the Times of Israel by Mitch Ginsburg of what it is like to grow up as a Jew in the Ayatollahs' Iran.

School days started with communal chants of
“Death to America” and “Death to Israel.” All of the Jewish students, he
recalled, would cheat in the “Death to Israel” chant, replacing the
Persian pronunciation of Israel with a similar word, which means “angel
of death.” Greeting the students, though, on their way into school, was
the Ayatollah Khomeini quote that Ahmadinejad later used*.

In sixth grade, during Friday night services,
M., disgusted by the statement, found a sharp metal object and scraped
away the quote.

One Saturday — sometimes a school day and
sometimes not, depending on the generosity of the Education Ministry —
the principal lined up the student body for morning assembly. After the
customary chanting and the cleanliness inspections by the teachers, the
principal went to the front of the hall and told the student body that
“an un-Islamic deed had been done… and I know who did it.”

M. was ordered to the front of the hall and
beaten in front of everyone. Then he was sent to wait for the principal
in his office, where he was beaten again. And then the situation got
even worse: The principal told him that his act was not a prank. It was a
Zionist act, a product of his education at home, and that it had to be
passed on to the state authorities.

The school janitor, a Jew, who had witnessed
the affair, saw M.’s mother nearby and called her urgently into the
school. The principal charged her with inculcating the children with an
anti-Islamic education and insisted that he would report the entire
family to the authorities. Only after three or four hours of arguing and
pleading, was his mother able to settle on a bribe, a payment to the
school and a commitment to have the Khomeini quote restored, at their
own expense, as soon as possible.

Immediately afterwards, the family began planning their covert immigration to Israel.

M. remembered his departure vividly. He said
that watching the 2012 movie “Argo,” and its tense airport scene, gave
him goose bumps. His family, too, he said, told no one that they were
leaving. Only on the morning of their departure, he said, did he tell
his two best friends that he was going to Shiraz, a code word among the
Jews that meant Israel. He arrived at the airport along with his mother
and two sisters — his father had to stay behind, as an entire family was
not allowed to leave the country together — and sat in a departure
terminal that resembled the one in “Argo.” He clutched his schoolbooks
to his chest, he said, so that, if asked, he could contend that he was
merely going on vacation to Istanbul and would be doing homework while
away.

Unlike the movie, in which the US nationals
escape on a Swiss Air flight and sip champagne as soon as the plane
lifts off, they flew on an Iranian airliner and were terrified until
they reached Turkey. Once there, they called a telephone number of an
embassy employee, who sent a car to the airport and, within days,
arranged Israeli passports for the family. “In Israel,” he said, “I
first met my older brother.”

M.’s father remained in Iran for another year.
He obtained a fake passport and was nearly ready to leave when IRGC
agents knocked on his office door. They found the passport in his drawer
and arrested him. “If you are caught doing this sort of thing,” M.
said, “you usually never get out alive.”

The leader of the Jewish community, Siamak Mor Sadegh, demonstrating in front a Tehran UN building with Jewish students in a staged show of support for the Iranian nuclear programme (Photo: AFP - with thanks: Michelle)

After paying “tons of money” and pulling every
string he had, he was allowed out on bail. Having helped many other
Jews escape Iran, M.’s father had good connections with the Balochs, the
desert dwellers who live on the eastern plateau. For two weeks he
traveled with them by camel and jeep convoy to the border region and
finally, with their help, slipped across the border into Pakistan,
where, M. said, the Jewish Agency had a representative who was able to
get him a passport and fly him to Sweden and from there to Israel.

M. was drafted into the IDF in 1995. As a
testament to the priorities of the intelligence establishment at the
time, he was slated to become a Merkava tank mechanic. Only once he had
started basic training did the Military Intelligence Directorate tap him
on the shoulder.

His job at the outset, he said, keeping his
description deliberately vague, “was translating the intelligence data
of what, we’ll say, was attainable.”

In those days the Persian desk at Military Intelligence was both smaller than today and mostly staffed by what the IDF calls lahagistim – those that knew the lahag, or
dialect, either as a mother tongue or from relatives around the house.
M. was sent to officers’ school, after repeated requests, and was put in
charge of a platoon of soldiers that translated raw intelligence.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Jewish refugees arriving in Haifa from Libya Non-Muslim minorities in Muslim countries have the status of dhimmi, which means "tolerated" or "protected". But improved legal status did not necessarily translate into improved lives, as prejudice in Morocco, for instance, was deeply entrenched, Dr David Bensoussan argues in Asia Times.

This flows from the assertion that Jewish and Christian scripture was distorted by
their unworthy depositories. It is legislated under the Pact of Umar
which was amended several times with the addition of other
discriminatory measures.

A dhimmi is in an inferior position within Muslim society: they
have special taxes, wear recognizable clothing, are the subject of
humiliating measures, and do not have legal status when they are
involved in a legal matter involving Muslims. Shi'ite Islam considers
Jews to be a source of impurity. While the conditions of Jews have
differed between countries, some features overlap for Jews in Morocco,
and in the Ottoman and Persian Empires.

In the 19th century, several travellers, consuls and educators, sent out
by the Alliance Israelite Universelle, sent back alarming reports on
the situation of Jews, including the following: daily humiliation,
objects of scorn, submissive to the point of atrophy, constant
insecurity, abductions, densely populated Jewish quarters, dramatic
impoverishment and seriously unsanitary living conditions. They
described nightmarish fanaticism on the one hand and resignation on the
other.

The difficult circumstances of Jews, who made up 0.5% to 3% of the
population, depending on the country, was also raised by Muslim
chroniclers. Jews automatically became the scapegoats whenever there was
political instability, a military defeat or difficult economic
conditions, as well as drought. Massacres and plundering happened on a
regular basis. [3]

Generally speaking, the rulers were benevolent to a certain degree - of
course there were exceptions - and their decisions were not always
applied accordingly.

For example, the decree agreed to in 1864 by the Moroccan ruler and the
philanthropist, Moses Montefiore, on the cessation of mistreatment of
Jews, never actually changed anything.

Jews were accused of ritual murder in Damascus in 1840 and in Cairo in
1902. In the Ottoman Empire, there were reforms that ended the mandatory
wearing of distinctive clothing and the special tax on non-Muslims, but
once again, in the more remote areas of the Empire, this was never
enforced.

The precolonial and colonial period
Being on the fringes of the 19th century expansion of Europe, many Jews
sought consular protection, and the parameters were set down at
international conferences in Tangier, Madrid, Lausanne, and so on.
Algerian Jews obtained the right to French nationality in 1870, Tunisian
Jews obtained it at their request in 1923 and Moroccan Jews maintained
their status of dhimmi when Morocco became a protectorate.

A large number of Jews acquired Egyptian nationality but this was
quietly withdrawn in 1940 which left about a quarter of Jews without a
nationality. In Yemen, Sharia law was applied in 1948 and Jewish orphans
were taken in order to be converted to Islam, a practice that had been
in use since 1922.

It should be pointed out that improved legal status for Jews did not
always translate into improved lives, because mentalities do not evolve
as quickly as one might hope. Overall, the Westernization of Jews in
countries where the majority is Muslim preceded that of Muslims by more
than one generation because of, among other reasons, the reach of the
school network of the Alliance Israelite Universelle.

Under the colonial regime, Jews were finally able to live outside the Jewish quarter, the mellah or hara,
and they no longer had to wear distinctive clothing. Many Muslims saw
this as changing the Jewish status that they felt had been carved in
stone by Islamic law. The tradition of prosecuting Jews during difficult
domestic times, as well as the resentment against colonial power and
the emancipation of Jews, were all key factors in triggering anti-Jewish
actions, as happened in Fez in 1912, in Cairo in 1945, and so on.

In order to avoid antagonizing the Muslim majority and even the
anti-Semitic European colonists, the colonial authorities often turned a
blind eye to the abuse of Jews, for example in Baghdad in 1941. No
doubt Jews were considering leaving their country if they could not
achieve equal rights. During the Second World War, a pro-Nazi regime
came to power in Iraq and the sweeping pogrom, the Farhoud, was carried
out in 1941. The Mufti in Jerusalem was the self-appointed voice of Nazi
propaganda and he encouraged Bosnia Muslims to join the Waffen SS. As
well, Jews in Libya were sent to death camps in Europe and a number in
Jews in Tunisia were made to do forced labor.

After the Second World War
After the war, there was growing insecurity in eastern Jewish
communities. There had been a pogrom in Libya in 1945, anti-British and
anti-Semitic riots within the same year in Egypt, in Syria, Yemen and
Aden in 1947, and Jews were excluded from the Syrian and Lebanese
administrations in 1947. The political committee of the Arab League,
made up of seven countries, proposed in 1947, well before Israel's
independence, that the assets of Jews be frozen. [4]

Israel's independence and their surprise victory over invading Arab
armies was a miracle in the eyes of Jews. Pressure was put on Jews who
were told to prove their loyalty by opposing the Jewish state and the
Arab press was full of invective against Israel and Jews. People left in
a panic for Israel from several countries despite threats to destroy
the newly formed state.

There were multiple anti-Jewish measures: non-renewal of professional
licenses in Iraq, a prohibition on leaving Iraq in 1948 and Yemen in
1949, the withdrawal of Egyptian nationality from Jews, who then became
stateless in the 1950s, and the withdrawal of the right to vote for Jews
in Libya in 1951.

Add to that the pogroms in Djerada, in Morocco in 1948, in Damascus and
Aleppo in 1948, in Benghazi and Tripoli in 1948, in Bahrain in 1949, in
Egypt in 1952, and in Libya and Tunisia in 1967. There were arrests and
expulsions in Egypt in 1956, economic strangulation by spoliation in
Iraq in 1951, in Syria in 1949, in Libya in 1970, or by exclusion in
Syria and Lebanon in 1947, in Libya in 1958, in Iran in 2000, or by
allowing Egyptian business only in Egypt in 1961.

Jewish heritage was destroyed in Oran in 1961 and in Libya in 1969 and
1978, there was police abuse and abductions of young girls with forced
conversions in Morocco from 1961 to 1962, Jews were kidnapped in Lebanon
in 1967, there were public hangings in Baghdad in 1969, anti-Semitic
cliches were used in the Arab press, and campaigns were used to increase
anti-Jewish sentiment and incite hatred, using Zionism as an excuse.
After the Six-Day War, this rhetoric increased considerably.

Even though there were assurances of equality before the law in
countries considered to be moderate, such as Morocco and Tunisia after
their independence, membership in the Arab League meant a full boycott
in terms of relations or contact with Israel. Mail was prohibited, it
was difficult to get a passport, and any media that did not portray
Israel extremely negatively was prohibited from reporting. This boycott
absolutely prevented any dialogue that could have led to mutual
understanding.

Discriminatory measures that were taken against Jews and the state of
Israel led to the quasi-disappearance of Jews in these countries. No
Arab state has taken responsibility for the fate of its Jewish citizens.
We are witnessing nowadays preservation measures of Jewish patrimony
and increased Israeli tourism in Morocco. On the other hand, former
Iranian president Mahmud Ahmadinejad's rhetoric denies the holocaust and
calls for the elimination of Israel and Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan acts as if it wanted the state of Israel to become a dhimmi state.

In conclusion, modern times opened the door to the possibility of the
dignity of citizenship for Jews, and prejudice compelled them to leave
their place of birth. The end of commonplace Jewish servitude in
Muslim-Arab countries was dramatic for the Muslim world, which is why
Arab nationalism has made Palestine its focal point for mobilization.
Zionism represents Jews who have reclaimed their dignity and defend
themselves, in other words the antithesis of dhimmis.

One must consider, furthermore, that the measures taken against Jews
varied from one country to another. Once they were promulgated, the
measures taken to protect Jews were rarely applied. In addition, it did
not take much to arouse the people's animosity toward Jews, regardless
of these measures.

The policy of terror and exclusion led to ethnic cleansing without
regard for rights or a possessions that were lost, confiscated or
abandoned, or to discriminatory measures along with their vicious
propaganda, which ultimately led to an exodus that was practically
forced, and often people left very quietly.

These discriminatory measures came in different forms and varied
depending on the country. If it had not been for the Arab media's
anti-Israeli frenzy and the discriminatory measures against Jews, it is
highly likely that some of them would have decided to stay in their
country. The feeling of insecurity constantly hung over Jewish
communities. Their departure became necessary for their survival,
otherwise it was just a question of time before they would be taken
hostage by the potential unrest, which they were sure they would fall
victim to next.

Jews who had been present in Arab Muslim countries for a 1,000 years
were squeezed out in the span of one generation, and they had to choose
exile to other countries.

Entry of the German army into Tunisia, November 1942 (photo: Yad Ben Zvi)

A Tunisian group championing minority rights has co-sponsored a conference to ensure that Tunisia learns the lessons of the Holocaust, The Times of Israel reports.

Historians, scholars and authors spoke at
Saturday’s conference, which remembered the 5,000 Jews subjected to
forced labor in Tunisia during a six-month Nazi occupation of the
country in 1942-43. Some were deported to Nazi death camps on the
European mainland.

It was among the first events focusing on the Holocaust to be held in an Arab country.

The conference also memorialized Muslims who
saved Jews during the period, including Khaled Abdelwahhab, a Tunisian
who successfully hid more than 20 Jews from the Nazis in a factory on
his property.

The Tunisian Association Supporting
Minorities, a Tunis-based NGO that works to defend the rights of the
country’s tiny Jewish community, and the Foundation for Ethnic
Understanding, a New York-based group that focuses on Muslim-Jewish
relations, sponsored the conference.

The forum was part of FFEU’s annual
International Weekend of Twinning, during which thousands of Muslims and
Jews in more than 30 countries around the world held joint events
promoting Muslim-Jewish understanding and trust.

“Our work at this conference is to prevent
amnesia and to ensure that something as terrible as the Holocaust should
never happen again,” said Yasmina Thabet, head of the Tunisian
Association Supporting Minorities.

“The terrible events of 1942-43 show us that
we must be vigilant today in defending the rights of all Tunisians —
including Jews and other minorities — threatened by religious extremists
who in recent months have been allowed to attack their fellow citizens
with near impunity.”

Monday, December 16, 2013

From top: A fragment of a Torah scroll. Doris Hamburg of NARA giving an interview. The fragments on view under a tent before their burial. (Photos: Edna Shohet; Lisette S)

On Sunday 15 December, representatives of the government of Iraq attended the burial of 49 fragments of Torah parchment in the Montefiore cemetery at the aptly-named town of West Babylon in Long Island, New York.

Five days earlier, a delegation of Iraqi officials transferred the fragments in sealed boxes from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and delivered them to the World Organisation of Jews from Iraq (WOJI).

Some 25 representatives of the Iraqi government, the US State Department, NARA and the National Endowment for Humanities had been expected to join members of the Jewish community for a religious ceremony at the graveside. The fragments were set out on tables for viewing before burial in a casket.

The Iraqi delegation was headed by its Ambassador to Washington DC, H.E. Lukman Faily. Several officials came especially from Iraq, representing the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Security Council and the Council of Ministers.

Maurice Shohet, president of WOJI said: "We received many email messages from US officials following the religious ceremony. One of them wrote:“Congratulations on turning this very important page. It has been humbling for all of us. It’s really an honor for us to be a part of this".

Another official wrote: “ What an amazing and spiritual day yesterday, very moving. ... regards and appreciation .... for being able to attend this historic event”. A third official wrote: “it was a moving and historic event to witness.”

The fragments are part of the Iraqi-Jewish archive, shipped to the US for restoration by NARA, but too dirty and damaged to be restored. Mildewed fragments or whose smell 'cannot be eliminated' also qualify for burial. According to Jewish religious law (Halakha) such fragments are no longer Kasher or fit for use.

WOJI had been engaged in delicate negotiations with the Iraqi authorities for months in order to get their agreement to the burial of these fragments.

The rest of the Iraqi-Jewish archive, however, is now the subject of controversy: Iraqi Jews have joined Jewish groups and US congressmen to protest its projected return to Iraq in 2014.

Torah scrolls and other Judaica plundered from
an ancient Damascus synagogue are being held by an Islamist group
inside Syria, which is demanding the release of prisoners captured by
the Assad regime in return for the items, The Times of Israel has
learned (With thanks: Lily):

The Jobar synagogue — said to be
2,000-years-old — was built on the site where the prophet Elijah is said
to have concealed himself from persecution and anointed his successor,
Elisha, as a prophet. It was badly damaged in March by mortars
reportedly fired by Syrian government forces; some reports say the
building was destroyed.

A source involved in negotiating for the
release of the Judaica items and their extraction from Syria, speaking
to The Times of Israel on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity
of the matter, said the objects were being held inside Syria by a group
affiliated with the Al-Nusra Front, an Islamist organization associated
with al-Qaeda and defined as a terrorist organization by the US. He said
the stolen items include at least three or four Torah scrolls as well
as ancient Jewish scrolls and silverware.

“They took everything they could get their
hands on,” the source said. “They want prisoners held by Assad [in
exchange for them].”

The source
said that Qatar may become involved in negotiating the release of the
items as part of its diplomatic bid “to play both sides” and demonstrate
negotiating capabilities with the Assad regime. Members of the
expatriate Syrian-Jewish community are also reportedly involved in the
talks.

“They [the Qataris] have a certain interest in
showing that they can handle elements they usually don’t get along with
… The Qataris like to play on all fields,” he said.

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Much of the archive was seized from the Meir Toeg synagogue in Bataween, Baghdad, by Saddam's henchmen. Richard Z Chesnoff took these photos in 1989 for US News and World Report. (Top and middle) The late synagogue gabbay, Abraham Sofer, holding an ornate Sefer Torah; standing in front of the Ark. (Bottom): Community president David Reuven outside the synagogue, opened in 1942. Sofer had returned to Baghdad from London to reclaim property seized by Saddam Hussein. He never succeeded, and not being able to leave, spent his last years at the synagogue. (All photos c. Richard Z. Chesnoff)

The Iraqi-Jewish archive is not like material taken from national museums: Iraqi Jews are its official heirs and the premise on which the US undertook to return the archive to Iraq is entirely flawed, according to JJAC executive vice-president Stan Urman. David Andleman of USA Today reports:

The Iraqi artifacts were liberated from four feet of water and mold
in the basement of Mukhabarat headquarters by American troops not long
after their arrival in Baghdad in 2003. Deteriorating and badly
maintained, they were immediately spotted by U.S. experts as a
remarkable find and shipped back to Washington for restoration and
preservation. But not before a pledge by the Americans that they'd go
back to Iraq, not their owners, at some appropriate time. That pledge
was made, of course, to the interim government the United States had
installed. Now there are new individuals in charge. But the time for the
archive's return is now drawing near.

"The entire premise is
flawed," says "Stanley Urman, executive vice president of Justice for
Jews from Arab Countries. "These were never Iraqi heritage materials,
never the property of the Iraqi government. They were seized and looted
from synagogues, schools, hospitals, private homes." In many cases, the
owners relinquished them only to win their freedom. "They were allowed
to leave [for Israel] only if they gave up their passports and all their
worldly possessions," Urman continues in an interview. In short, it was
part of the systematic destruction of what was once among the most
vibrant and thriving Jewish communities in the Middle East.

At the
end of World War II, there were more than 130,000 Jews in Iraq—a
quarter of the population of Baghdad. By the time of the Six Day War in
1967, that number had dwindled to barely 3,000. Today there are at most
seven Jews left — each fearful even of disclosing his identity — indeed
not even a minion, the minimum number (ten) required for Jewish
worship. But abroad, they constitute an enormous community, united under
the banner of the World Organization of Jews from Iraq, according to
its president, Maurice Shohet who himself fled Iraq in 1970 at the age
of 21. The largest single Iraqi Jewish community, outside of Israel, is
in the United States. And this is where the Iraqi diaspora wants these
artifacts to remain.

Just why the Iraqi government wants these
items returned is an open question—likely a pastiche of the public
position authorities have expressed to Urman, that it wants to showcase
the "contributions of the Jewish people to Iraq," and the reality that
they are aware of their enormous and unchallenged value.

"From our
point of view, they were taken from us and as a result we are the
official heirs of the material," Urman observes. "This is not like
material looted from national museums. It was taken by force by
intelligence agents."

And now, some substantial force is being
brought to bear on their behalf. On November 13, a bipartisan group of
47 House Democrats and Republicans signed a letter to Secretary of State
John Kerry urging the State Department to "facilitate the return of
these items to their rightful owners or their descendants, and not to
the government of Iraq." Why? "The government of Iraq has no legitimate
claim to these artifacts," the letter concludes.

But there is a
larger issue at stake here as well. Across the Middle East, shards
remain of once thriving Jewish communities — each with its own history,
its own relics and its own documents. Only rarely are these artifacts
carefully preserved or displayed. Cairo's Jewish community has shrunk
from more than 100,000 to barely 100, with every Jewish school,
hospital and club shuttered. Moreover, Urman says, few of its rich
collection of artifacts are on display — most held in basement
storerooms of a museum.

Follow by Email

Click picture for Facebook page

Introduction

In just 50 years, almost a million Jews, whose communities stretch back up to 3,000 years, have been 'ethnically cleansed' from 10 Arab countries. These refugees outnumber the Palestinian refugees two to one, but their narrative has all but been ignored. Unlike Palestinian refugees, they fled not war, but systematic persecution. Seen in this light, Israel, where some 50 percent of the Jewish population descend from these refugees and are now full citizens, is the legitimate expression of the self-determination of an oppressed indigenous, Middle Eastern people.This website is dedicated to preserving the memory of the near-extinct Jewish communities, which can never return to what and where they once were - even if they wanted to. It will attempt to pass on the stories of the Jewish refugees and their current struggle for recognition and restitution. Awareness of the injustice done to these Jews can only advance the cause of peace and reconciliation.(Iran: once an ally of Israel, the Islamic Republic of Iran is now an implacable enemy and numbers of Iranian Jews have fallen drastically from 80,000 to 20,000 since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Their plight - and that of all other communities threatened by Islamism - does therefore fall within the scope of this blog.)